From 1914 till Ukraine

From March 11 to July 23, 2023, the curatorial exhibition «From 1914 till Ukraine» by Kateryna Semenyuk and Oksana Dovgopolova took place at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany. With the war waged by Russia against Ukraine for nine years now, the project offers a discussion about the fate and future of Europe. The exhibition brings together the works of Otto Dix and Ukrainian artists.

Kunstmuseum Stuttgart is famous for its collection of works by Otto Dix, an essential German painter and graphic artist of the 20th century, who depicted the horrors that war brings to society. At the invitation of Anne Vieth, the museum’s curator, Kateryna Semenyuk and Oksana Dovgopolova developed the concept of the project that is integrated into the permanent exhibition space.

In the museum halls Großstadt (Metropolis) and Krieg (War), works by Otto Dix from the period of the First and Second World Wars meet the post-2014 works by Ukrainian artists Andrii Sahaidakovskyi, Andrii Rachynskyi and Daniil Revkovskyi, Katya Buchatska, and Denys Salivanov, as well as a collective sound project by Maksym Ivanov, Viktor Konstantinov, Ivan Skoryna, Kseniia Shcherbakova, and Kseniia Yanus.

With the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the old, quite stable order of Europe collapsed. The war was a turning point, and its consequences are felt even today. According to British historian Eric Hobsbawm, the “long 19th century” — from the French Revolution to 1914 — was followed by the “short 20th century,” which ended in 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union, the last empire. Today, however, we see that Russia continues to assert imperial claims to power, even strengthening these by conquering countries that previously existed within the borders of the USSR. The 20th century is still going on — when will it end?

Curators — Kateryna Semenyuk, Oksana Dovgopolova, Anne Vieth

Organisers — cultural memory platform Past / Future / Art, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart

Partners — Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), Rave Stiftung

Part of the presented works was provided by the collector Pavlo Martynov and the public organisation “Museum of Contemporary Art” (MOCA NGO)